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An Older Buddha, and Disease Numbers Good and Bad

As Americans paused to count their blessings last week, scientists made some reassessments of their own. The World Health Organization sharply increased its estimate of 2009 swine flu deaths and architects in Nepal found evidence that Buddha lived centuries earlier than previously thought. Still need something to be thankful for? Researchers in Pittsburgh may have put a number on the cases of contagious disease prevented by vaccines.

Developments

Pandemics:Somber Recount

The H1N1 “swine flu” pandemic of 2009 claimed far more victims than previously thought, according to a new study from the World Health Organization. About 203,000 people worldwide died from flu and respiratory problems, far higher than the 18,449 laboratory-confirmed cases that the W.H.O. stood by as its official count in 2009. Add in deaths from heart failure and other secondary consequences of the flu, the study said, and the toll rises to about 400,000.

The new total closely matches the conclusions of a 2012 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The W.H.O. was initially reluctant to estimate fatality rates.

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Archaeologists have uncovered a series of ancient temples within the Maya Devi Temple in Nepal.Credit
Ira Block/National Geographic

Archaeology: Birthday Surprise

Underneath a temple in Nepal thought to be the birthplace of Buddha, architects uncovered a timber shrine erected as early as the sixth century B.C. Though little is known of Buddha’s life, previous evidence favored a birth date no earlier than the third century B.C. If the new discovery truly was a Buddhist shrine, or even the site of Buddha’s birth, it could push those estimates back centuries.

Childhood vaccines have prevented more than 100 million cases of serious contagious disease in the United States since 1924, according to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine. In an impressive example of what can be accomplished by building and analyzing vast data sets, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh tracked public reports of 56 diseases going back to the 19th century. They determined the number of prevented diseases by tracking the decrease in disease reports after vaccines became available.

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A composite time-lapse photograph showing the comet ISON as it passed the sun, center. Astronomers now believe that it is disintegrating.Credit
NASA

The researchers stopped short of estimating how many deaths were prevented, though one of the authors said it was probably three to four million.

Medicine: Big Data in Health Records

Speaking of vast data sets, some scientists have found a new use for electronic medical records: searching through thousands at a time to find links between diseases and genes. In a reverse approach to genome-wide association studies, in which researchers take DNA samples from people with the same disease and search them for similar gene mutations, scientists have begun searching medical records for specific gene mutations and then determining whether the carriers share any diseases.

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These health records were not designed with research in mind, but the results so far are promising. “Warts and all, we can use them to do science,” said Robert C. Green, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School.

Coming Up

Astronomy: A Comet’s Last Act

It’s not looking good, but satellites and stargazers will watch the sky this week to see if anything remains of Comet ISON. The so-called comet of the century appeared to vaporize last Thursday after passing within a million miles of the sun. Hours later, it reappeared, only to fade again over the weekend. The light show long expected this week probably will not happen, scientists said, but a silver lining has emerged: By tearing apart before our eyes, ISON could provide better information about its composition and hints of how the planets formed than if it had remained intact.

A version of this article appears in print on December 3, 2013, on Page D3 of the New York edition with the headline: An Older Buddha, and Disease Numbers Good and Bad. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe